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Rice Defends Pre-emption as Security Policy

WASHINGTON, Oct. 8, 2003 - The president's national
security adviser defended the national security strategy of
pre-emption and said that discoveries in Iraq show it was
the right tack to take.

Condoleezza Rice told the Chicago Council on Foreign
Relations today that against the backdrop of the attacks of
Sept. 11, 2001, the policy is the only real option.

In prepared remarks, Rice said that 9-11 made clear the
enemies' goals, and provided painful experience of how far
they are willing to go.

"From their own boasts, we know that they would not
hesitate to use the world's most terrible weapons to bring
devastation to our shores," she said. "This threat is
potentially so catastrophic -- and can arrive with so
little warning, by means that are untraceable -- that it
cannot be contained."

Saddam Hussein's Iraq actively supported terrorism and
Hussein was actively seeking a weapons of mass destruction
program. Hussein had launched wars on neighbors - Iran and
Kuwait - and used chemical agents against the Iranians
and his own people.

"For 12 years, Saddam Hussein sat in the heart of the
world's most volatile region, defying more than a dozen
U.N. Security Council resolutions, terrorizing his people,
threatening his neighbors and the world," she said.

Rice told the council the United States has no evidence
that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9-11 attacks. "Yet
the possibility remained that he might use his weapons of
mass destruction or that terrorists might acquire such
weapons from his regime, to mount a future attack far
beyond the scale of 9-11," she said. "This terrible
prospect could not be ignored or wished away."

And most nations of the world agreed. Rice said that the
United Nations passed 17 Security Council resolutions that
Hussein blithely ignored. "The Security Council was right
to do so," she said. "And President Bush was right to lead
a coalition of nations to enforce the Security Council's
clear resolutions, to uphold the credibility of the United
Nations and to defend the peace of the world."

Now Saddam Hussein's government is gone, his sons are dead,
he is in hiding, and Iraqis are coming forward revealing
the vast killing fields and weapons of mass destruction
programs.

The coalition Iraqi Survey Group, led by CIA's David Kay,
is examining suspected sites in Iraq. In Kay's report
delivered to Congress last week, Rice noted he sited
discoveries of "dozens of WMD-related program activities
and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed
from the United Nations during the inspections that began
in late 2002."

"The ISG has confirmed many activities that we already knew
about, including Iraq's massive deception campaign to
conceal its weapons programs and its maintenance of
prohibited delivery systems," Rice said. "The ISG has also
uncovered some information that appears to corroborate
reports that Iraq tested chemical and biological substances
on human beings."

The group has also uncovered evidence that Iraq tried to
obtain Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever, North
Korean technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic
missiles, and chemical weapons.

The United States had to act, Rice said. Had it not, Saddam
would have remained in power with more mass graves, more
children in prison and more daily depredations of the Iraqi
people. "And Saddam would have remained -- indefinitely --
poised in the heart of the Middle East, sitting atop a
potentially deadly arsenal of terrible weapons, threatening
his neighbors and the world," she said.

She said that now the people of Iraq are free and are
working toward self-government. "Step by step, normal life
in Iraq is being reborn, as basic services are restored,"
she said.

"America's service men and women, working with Iraqis and
coalition forces, are helping to usher in these
improvements," Rice said. "Our troops in Baghdad and other
cities are operating under difficult conditions. Baathist
dead-enders, Fedayeen fighters and foreign terrorists
continue to attack coalition forces, innocent Iraqis and
symbols of progress.

"As President Bush has said, Iraq is now the central front
in the war on terror. Enemies of freedom are making a
desperate stand there, and there they must be defeated."

Rice said the American people must remain patient. "Our own
history should remind us that the union of democratic
principle and practice is always a work in progress," she
said. "When the Founding Fathers said 'We the people,' they
did not mean me. My ancestors were considered three-fifths
of a person."

She said America must support those seeking freedom. "We
have an opportunity - and an obligation -- to help them
turn this desire into reality," she said. "And we must work
with others to create a world where terror is shunned and
hope is the provenance of every living human. That is the
strategic challenge -- and moral mission -- of our time."